Asa’s mouth snapped shut at that, and he stared at Carmen, surprise flickering in those eyes of his.
“And you’re passionate too,” Carmen pointed out. “It’s like you feel so much you don’t even know what to do with those feelings sometimes.”
“I can handle my feelings just fine,” Asa muttered, punctuating his words with a gentle pull of Carmen’s hair. “Just not when it comes to you,” he admitted in a small voice.
Carmen stopped breathing for a moment. And then her heart went into overdrive.
“Why do you love me so much?” The question slipped past her attempts to stop it, her voice cracking as she searched Asa’s eyes relentlessly for an explanation.
She felt him freeze beneath her, his arm tense around her waist, his fingers grow slack and loosen their grip on her hair.
And then, after a moment, he exhaled.
He exhaled as if he was breathing out all the air that was left in his lungs, and if it were possible, he pulled Carmen even further into his body.
“I don’t know, Carmen,” he told her earnestly, voice thick with emotion. “I don’t know how to tell you in words. I only know how to show you. And even then, it couldn’t possibly reveal even a third of what I actually feel.”
And maybe that was it, the one thing that was their biggest difference and also what allowed them to complement each other so well—he didn’t have the words to tell her he loved the midnight shade of her hair and could only show it by running his fingers through them. And she didn’t know how to show him how obsessed she was with the gold of his eyes, but could only talk about them in pure poetry.
But words could only prove so much, and actions didn’t always speak volumes. There had to be a little bit of both.
“All I know,” Asa spoke again. “Is that the world was black, white and a couple shades of grey. Then you happened. And now leaves aren’t just leaves, September isn’t just a month, rain isn’t just rain, autumn is no longer just another season, and art isn’t just art. You change the world, Carmen West. And all I want to do is see it through your eyes.”
And Asa had done it; he’d managed to gather ‘a little bit of both’, managed to arrive at that balance. He’d found the words to say to her.
If she uttered those three words now, would he believe her? Carmen couldn’t help but wonder as she stared into his eyes, all words abandoning her at his confession. But three words remained; three words sat at the tip of her tongue, begging to be released.
Not yet, she told herself. She still had a lot she needed to say.
There was another pull of her hair. “Say something.” Asa smiled, but it looked a little uneasy.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Carmen whispered in a haunted tone. “Not tonight, anyway.”
Asa untangled his fingers from her hair and used his knuckles to stroke her cheekbone. “Then tell me something I can believe,” he whispered back, never breaking eye contact.
Carmen paused to gather her thoughts, running her mind through every possible way she could just to start this conversation but coming up empty each time.
“I don’t know where to start, Asa,” she told him in an apologetic tone. “I’m sor—”
“Shh.” He shook his head, placing his finger on her lips. “No more apologies for tonight, remember?” He took his finger away, dragging it down her bottom lip as he did so. “Just…just start at the point that you feel is the beginning.”
Carmen’s thoughts floated to tonight’s game, when she’d finally found the courage to run after Asa. The football field flashed in front of her eyes—the passionate players, the wild crowd, and the hyperactive cheerleaders.
“She was popular,” Carmen began, averting her gaze from Asa’s and trailing her eyes over the patterns her fingers had started to trace on his chest. “Dad said she was popular because she had a fierce spirit and a kind smile, but my aunt Viola used to say Mum’s popularity came from her ability to seduce anything that walked.”
“Your aunt is an idiot, no offense.”
“I honestly don’t mind.” Carmen sighed, her mind flashing back to the wretched night of Thanksgiving. “She wanted to have fun, I guess. Didn’t want to settle down until she’d lived her life to the fullest and tried everything that her heart desired. At least, that’s how Dad put it.” Carmen’s hands stopped drawing invisible patterns on the t-shirt Asa was wearing and instead grabbed a fistful of it and tucking her head underneath his chin. “She had a reputation though, amongst the guys during high school. And despite meeting Dad in college, despite falling in love with him and leaving her old ways behind so that she could get involved in a serious relationship, that reputation still followed her. People never really let her forget.”
Asa’s hand went back to her hair, his long fingers stroking it all the way from the roots down to the tips.
“And just like the boy who cried wolf, nobody believes a slut when she cries rape.” Carmen laughed darkly, the bitter sound scaring her own self. Almost on instinct, she tilted her head back and glanced at Asa; he didn’t seem shocked or scared of her, though.
“Dad had gotten into a student exchange program at that time, and he wasn’t at campus with her, so everyone thought she’d taken that chance to cheat on Dad. They didn’t believe her. Told her that she was only accusing the guy of rape because she hadn’t expected to get pregnant and a baby was something she wouldn’t be able to hide from my dad. They said she was just looking for a scapegoat, that the pregnancy was
